LANDAUER, M. H.:

Writer on Jewish mysticism; born in 1808 at Kappel, near Buchau, Württemberg; died there Feb. 3, 1841. He was a son of the cantor Elias Landauer, and at the age of eighteen entered the yeshibah and lyceum in Carlsruhe; later he studied at the universities of Munich and Tübingen. In spite of ill health he returned to Munich in 1838 to copy from Hebrew manuscripts in the Royal Library extracts for use in his investigations. In 1839 he passed the examination for the rabbinate, and in the following year was appointed rabbi of Braunsbach, Württemberg. Only three months later illness obliged him to resign his position and to return to Kappel, where he died.

Of Landauer's works the following may be mentioned: "Jehova und Elohim, oder die Althebräische Gotteslehre als Grundlage der Geschichte der Symbolik und der Gesetzgebung der Bücher Mosis," Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1836 (see A. Geiger's review in his "Wiss. Zeit. Jüd. Theol." iii. 403 et seq.); "Wesen und Form des Pentateuchs," ib. 1838. Landauer's posthumous works and excerpts, dealing with his investigations of the history and literature of the Cabala, of the Zohar, and of Jewish literature, as well as his report on his studies of Hebrew manuscripts, were published in "Orient, Lit." 1845-46.